the director of european and russian affairs on the national security council and named by previous witnesses as having key information into the president's decision to withhold aid from ukraine and drumming up expectations further is morrison's announcement on the eve of his expected testimony that he is resigning from the white house how do you know castro al-jazeera washington heading to asia now wary powerful earthquake has hit the southern philippines sending people fleeing from homes schools and shopping the world's buildings collapsed when the 6.5 magnitude quake hit the island of mindanao is the 3rd earthquake to strike the same area in the past 2 weeks. well still ahead here on al-jazeera battleground for more than 50 years now a 1000000 miles leader is trying to end the violence between ethnic groups and the army also find scientists take on a new wildfire that's broken out on the fringes of last century use and its california battles to contain blazes raging across the state.

hello again and welcome back we have crossed parts of southern california it is still going to be the winds of big concern over the next few days we're talking hurricane force winds and those are the santa ana winds for california though for los angeles it is going to be still very very dry across the region where the temperature there of $25.00 degrees out here towards the east we do have a big storm system that is making its way up here towards the northeast heavy rain anywhere from boston all the way down towards atlanta and by the time we get to friday that system makes its way more towards the northeast but down towards the south it is going to be improving but those temperatures are going to be dropping we do expect to see atlanta at 13 degrees there well from mexico city it is going to be a rainy day here on thursday the temperature a few 18 degrees friday looks

a little bit better and we're going to be seeing those clouds still stay in place but most of the rain pushing over here towards the east cozumel though a few showers for you with a temperature of 30 degrees and then very quickly as we go down here towards parts of argentina as well as over here towards perth way it is still going to be some clouds in the forecast for for sencion you're going to be seeing a little bit of a break in the temperatures still very warm few but temps are here on thursday at 37 degrees but the temperatures are going to be coming back up on friday to 42 and for rio expect to see some thunderstorms in your forecast with a temperature of 28 degrees. but you. know the scale of modern slavery in the u.k. is enormous we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg really to something called the modern slavery act i'm just. going congress you punch someone in the stone i haven't companies need to start to understand that this is exploitation if it

sounds too good to be true it probably is and there are some very very nasty people out there al-jazeera investigates britain's modern slave trade. book about you're watching al-jazeera that means a whole roman a reminder of our top stories the iraqi military says one person has been killed after a rocket was fired into baghdad's heavily fortified green zone it happened shortly after a separate incident bridge by witnesses say security forces shot at least one protester dead and injured dozens more syrian state media is reporting that heavy fighting

between government troops and turkish forces near the border syrian government forces have taken up positions following a kurdish withdrawal. and former white house national security advisor john bolton has been asked to testify at the peach bidding quietly into donald trump is controversial phone call with his new crazy and counterpart trump is accused of withholding military aid to ukraine to try to get it to investigate its rival. joe biden. security forces in lebanon have fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the northern town of there and to government demonstrations continue across the country despite prime minister saad hariri ignatius very quick on tuesday saying he'd come to a dead end in dealing with the president to protest that of power lies the country presently shallow also asked her to stay all until a new government is formed saying the holder has more from the lebanese capital. the roads are now open so will schools universities and banks lebanon may no longer

be paralyzed but the political crisis is far from over protesters who blocked roads across the country for almost 2 weeks toppled the coalition government prime minister saddle had resigned after failing to form a government free from the influence the political parties the president michel aoun has still to set a date to start consultations with members of parliament to agree on a new prime minister a post held by a son a muslim replacing heidi won't be easy he is considered the representative of that community. but hariri will insist on a semi technocratic government but the ruling coalition is insisting political parties remain represented hariri want to accept that so the other scenario is hezbollah forming a government that is more dominated by the group something it wants to avoid. hezbollah and its allies are the majority in government and parliament but it is

under u.s. sanctions like its iranian backer that is why it needs a partner like who is supported by the west house speaker to be a birdie is warning against international intervention it seems lebanon is yet again caught in the arena of the us iranian struggle both countries have weighed in the crisis which began as a protest for better living conditions iran is accusing the us saudi arabia and israel of supporting the protesters while the us is calling for a government that will be responsive to the needs of the people protesters who are now confining their street action to public squares are promising to push for radical change they say they are ready for a long struggle to bring down a stick terry and system that has been governing them for decades that was 2nd demand is the formation of a new cabinet from expertise people who have expertise none corrupted nonpartisan so they can govern and conduct the transition phase and our next demand would be

the early apartments or elections so we are staying on the streets until these demands are met overthrowing post-war leaders won't be easy so far they are refusing demands to hand over power a lot of uncertainty lies ahead senator beirut. a palestinian politician has been arrested by israeli forces during a raid on her home in the occupied west bank city of ramallah leader gerard is a member of the palestinian legislative council and a leading figure in the popular front for the liberation of palestine a party that's been banned by israel charles daughter posted on social media saying that more than 70 soldiers and about 12 military vehicles were involved in the raid . and that the americans know where chile has been falls to council to may just summit's after weeks of antigovernment protests the government turns withdraw from hosting the asia pacific economic cooperation summit and a meeting on climate change as one more repellent has more from santiago.

thousands of people demonstrate on the streets of the chilean capital for the 12th day in a row while protesters marched chile's president. made an unexpected announcement to major international summits that were scheduled to be held in chile in the coming weeks would be cancelled. but the. primary concern and priority as a government is to reestablish order guarantee safety for our society. by pulling out of the asia pacific economic conference or a peg will no longer host a highly anticipated meeting between u.s. president donald trump and china's xi jinping. we're expected to sign phase one of a new trade deal between the u.s. and china. the chilean president has also cancelled the cop 25 climate change conference a united nations sponsored summit that was scheduled to be held in cheerless capital in december the indications we have so far at this present moment is that

they would continue to serve as the presidency of the 25th session of the conference of parties so the sort of leadership that they've been providing in the past months will continue. for many demonstrators filled santiago's iconic blast the canceling of the international summits seemed of little concern protesters said president. should instead be focused on addressing the demands of demonstrators elected. by the people watching us to see if he doesn't believe the media our media lying to us when you know when there may have been a case for. lighting up the media ask facebook protests just like this taking place every day for almost 2 weeks and surely the demands of demonstrators have evolved over time what we're hearing from people on the streets now are calls for the resignation of the country's president. a military enforced curfew and state of

emergency in chile was recently lifted but the demonstrations that have swept through several cities across chile haven't ended. apart from a distrust of the country's political leaders demonstrators remain angry at cheetah's police forces who are using aggressive tactics like water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protests. santiago chile. state unsung suchi is again cold war ethnic groups to end decades a fighting between groups and the army the peace talks were a focal point effect campaign when her party was elected 5 years ago but as the highly reports although he does the fighting continue there are more accusations that military is carrying out atrocities. in myanmar's north for more than 50 years shan state has been the battleground for armed ethnic groups fighting the country's army for more autonomy during a recent army offensive military helicopters were seen opening fire in civilian

areas in a township of northern shan state in the on how long the sound of helicopters and a lot of explosions were terrifying and it doesn't matter if they were in town on the up by the sa was very frightening for the children just this month an amnesty international report accused the military of committing war crimes against civilians in northern shan state the report also said that armed ethnic groups use of use of tactics as they fight the army and among themselves as they battle for control in shan state an area rich in minerals and where much of the world's illegal opium and heroin is produced civilians fleeing the recent fighting gathered at a buddhist temple seen as a safe haven most of them are part of the dutch hill tribe for generations they have cultivated t.v. as their main source of income. because they have been fighting like this you can't go and pick the team this cause this is a big problem the t.s.a. ripens and nobody who want to buy it and that's cause economic problems. northern

shan state is one of myanmar is the least developed regions of the fighting continues there's little hope that the situation will improve for the people here an example of the failure of a nationwide ceasefire agreement signed 4 years ago but it could also mean political difficulties for a leader on song suchi once she starts campaigning for next year's election scott al-jazeera. farmers threatening thousands of homes on the reagan library in simi valley california firefighters say dry winds forecast for the next few days are likely just on the flames the fire was burning just a few kilometers from another phone in the get he said to museum in los angeles but that phone has been burning for 2 days also has displaced files and of people. from the heels in california. we have 5 percent humidity in the air in los angeles and some dangerous winds the air is so dry the winds are coming from the desert they're not the cool ocean breezes and that's part of the

problem the fire that was burning in in the hills over los angeles that burned a dozen homes a few days ago the cause has been traced to a branch the blue from a tree and into power lines sending showers of sparks into the air and spotting fires in the neighborhood that is why the power has been cut in many many of the areas in northern california where i am in california's wine country and sonoma county where the largest fire of the last week is still burning this one at 76000 acres it is burned 200 buildings half of those being homes some of them wineries schools churches stores in this area 90000 homes are still in the path of these fires so very difficult times for firefighters who are working to fortify the lines before the wind kicks up again. twitter is betting

political ads saying messages may be misleading the new policy goes into effect next month the company's c.e.o. jack dorsey says political messages should be earned and not fought he also says internet advertising is powerful and effective but it brings risks to politics where it can be used to influence votes that affect the lives of millions of people well u.s. president coltrane's 2020 alexion campaign manager has reacted to twitter's alerts been calling it and we quote a very dumb decision pascali said twitter walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars worth of potential revenue here steve twitter will also stop by ads from biased liberal media outlets which will now run unchecked and accused it of being yet another attempt to silence conservatives since which of those that president trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known erica is a us political analyst and author of the g.o.p.

civil war he says this change will have political campaign team scrambling to adapt their strategies this is huge not only for the business and social media community but more importantly for the political landscape not just in the united states but across the globe we're talking about a major vehicle major lane for getting out one's message is now being closed off completely and so what this does is this campaign messaging. people from various campaigns scrambling trying to find a way to reach their audience and as we know twitter has a large audience and able to reach many millions of people and so now that lane is completely cut off leaving people trying to figure out how in fact they reached their audience but of course many are looking and wondering what in fact well mark zuckerberg of facebook do and now their twitter has made this momentous decision this move is i think it will be much welcomed by the. at least in the united states

by the democratic liberal community we do know that in 2016 the election of president donald trump his primary vehicle for reaching his audience was through twitter and now the president has to find another way to reach that audience on a daily basis without the benefit of using political ads facebook says it suspended the russian accounts that tried to interfere in the domestic politics of a number of african countries it says the accounts are part of 3 networks tied to a russian business but he's been accused of meddling in u.s. elections the campaigns targeted people in 8 nations including mozambique the democratic republic of congo and libya almost 200 fake accounts were used to reach more than 1000000 followers for the funerals are being held for 11 people killed in protests in guinea earlier this month and tens of thousands have been demonstrating your about a potential change the constitution that male our president for condé to seek

a 3rd term in power protests to say it will push kitty into a dictatorship. move i don't have the words to express myself this deception what are we seeing on the ground it could kill politics in the funeral the secret in our tradition our younger brothers were killed how can the family come here 14 days later with no chance to have the funeral earlier. donald trump's a federal judge in albany has broken down in tears during a grilling by the us senate judiciary committee lawrence fund has been nominated by trying to fill a seat on the 9th circuit court of appeals he was asked about the contents of a letter from the bar association which gave him a rating of not qualified the letter questioned whether van dyke would be fair to l g b t people that prompted this response. i pod. sorry . sorry

no i did not say that i did not believe that. it is a fundamental belief that all people are created in god they should all be treated any. respect. a large fire has destroyed a unesco world heritage site on japan's southern island of okinawa firefighters are battling the blaze which was gutted the main hall and surrounding buildings the assurity castle was built more than 500 years ago. we want you all to 0 with me said whole robin a reminder of our top news stories the iraqi military says one person has been killed after a rocket was fired into baghdad's heavily fortified green zone it happened shortly after a separate incident at the bridge eyewitnesses say the security forces shot at least

one protester dead and injured dozens more. syrian state media is reporting heavy fighting between government troops and turkish forces near the border syrian government forces have taken up positions following a recent kurdish withdrawal former white house national security adviser john bolton has been asked to testify at the impeachment inquiry into president trump's controversial phone call to his ukrainian counterpart trump is accused of withholding military aid to ukraine to try to get it to investigate his rival joe biden. a powerful earthquake has hit the southern philippines sending people fleeing from homes schools and shopping malls buildings collapsed when the 6.5 magnitude quake hit the island of mindanao it's the 3rd of quake to strike the same area in the past 2 weeks security forces in lebanon has fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the northern town of their antigovernment demonstrations continue

across the country despite prime minister saad hariri says it nation very quick on tuesday saying he come to a dead end in dealing with the president of protests that have paralyzed the country presently shallow and has asked her to stay until a new government is formed. a palestinian politician has been arrested by israeli forces during a raid on her home in the occupied west bank city of ramallah collegiate arar is a member of the palestinian legislative council a leading figure in the popular front for the liberation of palestine the party that's been banned by israel gerard's daughter posted on social media say more than 70 soldiers and around 12 military vehicles were involved in the aid. chile has no longer or will no longer host 2 major international summits. president pinera cancel both the asia pacific economic cooperation summit of the meeting on climate change but it's because of nationwide protests over economic inequality that's left

at least 20 people dead and hundreds more injured and back with more use in half an hour here on al-jazeera do stay with us. the maldives the magnet for tourists from around the globe the behind the beach risk landscape young men are leaving to buy with groups in syria when i went east investigates on al-jazeera. hi i'm steve clements and i have a question is america an ally that can be trusted let's get to the bottom line. ever since the united states adopted its america 1st stance nato has been lambasted crimea's annexation looks permanent south korea was told they should pay for the us bases in their country and there's a renewed attempt to get out of the so-called forever wars in the middle east so can anyone blame america's allies if they're confused does anyone believe that the us will stand by them in their time of need does america 1st really mean america alone or america on the sidelines of the big global challenges we're very fortunate

today because we have 3 people in the room that have all the answers to these questions kelly playhouse is the executive editor of the american conservative magazine james carafano works on national security and foreign policy at the heritage foundation and richard fontayne heads the center for a new american security great to have all of you with us here have a lot to get through today i was surprised by a comment that bret stephens in the new york times made recently where he was agreeing with all people iran's foreign minister zarif is a reef basically was saying that allies of america. were in kind of a bad place today and that they should neither seek america's permission to do things nor look on at america to secure their security and he's basically saying our allies are in trouble so kelly let me let me start with you what is what is the state of america's allies in the world are how we organize our national security infrastructure around the world in the right way or do our allies need to begin

looking for other places to secure their their needs i think i think the latter is correct i mean i'm thinking of george washington's farewell address when he warned against foreign entanglements he warned that in pursuing these friendships partnerships treaties entanglements as he put it would put us in a complicated position and. which we were basically selling and sharing our foreign policy basing our foreign policy on other people's other country's interests those entanglements were things that we built after world war 2 that had gone through horrific wars where we had world war one world war 2 nato was securing our security doing a deal with japan and basing u.s. forces abroad was something what we looked at is at that time is vital to u.s. national security and our allies around the world put a lot of trust in those relationships so you think going back to washington that we should we should never have done those well i think. i'm paper that looks fabulous

but when we're looking at today's situation when you look at the kurds for instance and the reason why bret stephens wrote that column we're talking about complex relationships based on expedience in our foreign policy we have basically maintained this relationship with the p k k that the syrian kurds to get rid of isis but at the same time our turkish nato ally has declared the p.k. k. a terrorist organization so we're in a situation where we've brought turkey into nato in which they have completely different interests at any given time in the united states and then president trump is being blamed for leaving the syrian kurds high and dry but yet they're no longer serving our interests in the region so it gets so complicated that goes beyond the sort of heroism that you're speaking of and world war 2 are creating these alliances to bring peace to the world jim let me ask you should our allies be

worried about the solvency of their relationship with united states right now you know and the reason for that is what's changed with trump and the reality is not much from the united states is a global power with global interests responsibility what in its america to the world's really 3 reasons europe the middle east the you know pacific can the united states. it's guaranteed its interests in any one of those 3 areas without allies the short answer is no so what fundamental allies have we dropped and abaddon in europe nato is a strong as ever and the indo-pacific not only do we have the traditional allies like south korea and japan but we have emerging strategic relationships with countries like india so if anything our alliance our partnership structure and the in a pacific a stronger over the last decade and in the middle east you know change all the names you want i mean who does the us go back to time and time again and israel

which is our anchor in the region we're back in a strong relationship with egypt we have an alliance we have a relationship with with saudi arabia i got to tell you take take the word off of there and you're saying it's all good but i want i want to play a clip right now president trump on nato nato members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations but 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they're supposed to be paying for their defense. now jim i know you're saying that nato has never been stronger never been better and i know that the president is just kicking the shins of our allies to contribute more and make it even stronger but i know that to be the argument but i was at that meeting if you sat down with those defense ministers and you sat down with those leaders they don't feel they feel like nato is wobbly they feel a little bit like america's commitment to the to our mutual security arrangement is

not as robust as it once was take tell me where i'm wrong well. every american president going back to eisenhower was complaining about nato allies kicking in and even president trump at the end of the last nato summit said hey the alliance is great they've kicked in $100000000000.00 this is terrific you know what there are there is wildly in this in nato but it's not the united states that's wobbly if you go to germany today and you look at the state of the german defense contribution concerning the size of their economy that looks a lot lot of if you talk about turkey if you look at where turkey is done some of its other own allies including you bringing in the s $400.00 as an air defense system and sacrificing the f. $35.00 which is an unbelievable asset which would not only tremendously increase turkey's ability to defend itself but would absolutely expand the capacity of nato to collective to self-defense so yeah there is wobbliness in nato but it's not coming from washington rich what is your dashboard on this look like in the sense

that i know from your roles here for new american security that you've written that you sort of lament we have before i don't think you agree with jim to you that nato is in as healthy a form as it could be now i think it's obvious that it's not in part it's due to the fact that the german military is as well funded and developed as it should be but a lot is based on washington and president trump a particular and ensure an alliance is an insurance policy particularly mutual defense agreement like with nato where we say we will defend you if called upon to do so and you'll defend us of called upon to do so now it's mostly been the united states has called upon our nato allies to help. said afghanistan and other places we've not had to come to defense of stone or hole in there somebody like that but of course that's their end of the bargain unlike any insurance policy against a threat that may or may not materialize you try to think what is the chances that if i need this it's actually going to be there for me what are the chances not only

that the american military is big but the american president is going to use it to protect me if called upon to do so and given the president's rhetoric which is really most of what these leaders have to go by they wonder whether if push came to shove the united states would actually go to war to defend montenegro millet a nato ally or defend poland or defend us dhoni or defend a country like that because the body language and some of the rhetoric of the president suggests that he would not do you think we should yes if they're a nato ally we have made that commitment i think if one falls away then the entire the entire edifice crumbles you can have the debate before a country comes to nato well about whether they'll be and that's why i was annoyed kelly's point is that these entangling alliances get us deeper and deeper into it sounds very much like pre world war one right it sounds a little bit like all of these side deals may get us into something where all of a sudden we have a kinetic conflict we have a war we have deployment of troops and and all other means of war brought in in something that seems smaller than we should be using american muscle and power for lives so kelly come back to you for

a minute on this on this question is i think it's a fasting are we to an inflection point where you believe we need to the united states needs to come back and redesign its alliances and pull back a bit i do and i think they did take the example of russia and are evolving relationship with russia as an example russia has been increasingly aggressive as we've been increasingly involving former so very soviet countries into nato so as much as the washington establishment likes to say that that russia has been acting aggressively on. it's own it's it has been in response to the fact that we've brought in these former eastern bloc countries into nato under our security of the balkans so small can check it all breaks over hungry so as much as we push they push back and i think that we have to sort of look at what are what are our policies moving forward who are the predominant powers we're seeing russia playing

a more productive and it role and things that are happening in syria right now they've reach to russia i mean to china and vice versa and responses to some regional and global issues we're finding our power diminishing as their power of china and russia have have escalated we need to like you said maybe recalibrate those relationships. and you know our footprint whether it be in europe or south korea in asia so i think it's time for some sort of reckoning to sort of look at the past and find out and kind of consider where the mistakes of these entanglements are and how we can move forward i know that president trump has sort of like upset the apple cart coming into washington and talking about. you know nato went in and their responsibility even the village idiot nato itself and you

know that's upset a lot of people here in washington but i think looking forward we've seen the polls of the of the power structure change and we haven't kept up to it couple kept up with it and i think in syria you're seeing that and stark relief right now so our talk to a lot of supporters of president trump just out in middle america and one of the things that came up with something i heard you know 20 years ago but it still feels real to them is that america fought the cold war and china won and and that people feel as if for everything that they have expended in lives and energy around the. world other nations are free riding on american power and that they look at it is a sort of an entitlement that is that is due them and jim i want to ask you and that is one with you agree with that because that's where a lot of president trump supporters are that they say they want to see america get something back for all of its investment in the world they feel they're due and

when you listen to the president's rhetoric whether it's on ukraine or talking about nato or talking to japan or south korea about doing more it's almost a transactional arrangement you need to pay us to defend you we'll decide later if that security guarantee is is good if you buy a lot of weapons so should we bring something it's i hate the word to use words quid pro quo but that has a transactional dimension to it to show americans that they're getting something out of these commitments well like us i think not only is there an enormous enormous amount of continuity in our alliance structure and i would argue keli that's because it works in the alliance structures sustain because people feel like they're giving them value to your point i mean when the data i've looked at in the polling is nato is actually more popular number americans and it's actually more popular among conservatives so there isn't really a kind of a runaway from europe attitude in the american public that i mean that's what.